


She Drowns

by 50artists



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25885633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/50artists/pseuds/50artists
Summary: Instead, she presses her death-cold lips against the inner surface of her coffin. She does not remember what body heat feels like. She imagines Andy behind her mouth, the first and last person she ever kissed, her lips warm with humanity and salt and grit and blood.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	She Drowns

**Author's Note:**

> content warning for drowning and claustrophobia

She drowns.

~*~*~

She drowns.

~*~*~

She drowns.

~*~*~

The water rushes into her lungs.

She drowns.

~*~*~

The water rushes into her lungs. It is so cold, she feels the chill of it seep through her chest cavity.

Breathing brings no relief. She drowns.

~*~*~

Unfortunately, human bodies are not built on logic, but on their ancestors' memories. The water seeps into her lungs even when she tries to hold her breath. Breathing brings no relief. The water is so cold, she feels the chill of it within her chest cavity.

She has no gills, no way of processing all the oxygen in what she inhales. It is the ultimate tradgedy.

Andy will rescue her. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not even for the next century. But some time, Andy will rescue her.

She drowns.

~*~*~

The iron grows flaky first. There is no real rust. She must have lived a hundred times, hundreds of hundreds - but the iron is more resilient than her, it outlasts every breath.

Sometimes she sees fish. Gills ripple across their necks. Unfortunately, human bodies are not built on logic, but on their ancestors' memories. There is no way for her to breathe, even as water rushes into her lungs. She has no gills.

_Andy, have you left me to this fate?_

She has endured pain. Fate has abandoned her. She has no way of processing all the oxygen in what she inhales - if only she was a witch and she could warp the Earth to her own will. Where do the bubbles that she exhales even come from? What is happening beneath her skin?

_Andy, where are you? Will you dive to me soon?_

It is the ultimate tradgedy for an immortal, to be trapped - it is even worse than death. To be tortured for decades, and decades, and decades. Human stories end in death. Immortal stories end in entrapment, because immortals know the pain of eternity. Worse than oblivion. Not even comparable.

_Andy will rescue me. Not today. Not tomorrow._

_Not this century._

_Some time, Andy will rescue me._

Water fills all her brachaeoli. She drowns.

~*~*~

The iron grows flaky first. Then it begins to crumble. Her fingernails, which are long and untrimmed, scrabble against the inner surfaces which are still smooth until even they begin to wear away.

There is no real rust, because she peels it back with her own strength. She does not want to fight, after the first few months, but she has no other choice.

Sometimes she does not bother trying to breathe. Instead she presses her death-cold lips against the inner surface of her coffin. She does not remember what body heat feels like. She imagines Andy behind her mouth, the first and last person she ever kissed, her lips warm with humanity and salt and grit and blood, pulling into a smile too fast to be romantic.

She must have lived a hundred - a thousand - times, lived and died, but she never forgets Andy. Not until Andy's facial features start to blur. Not until… Andy was Greek, right? Or Roman? Definitely Western… Andromeda, right? But was that a Roman name? Perhaps she was British. Or… No, definitely Roman. Or Greek. One of those two.

The iron is more resilient than her. She drowns, and her nails chip away, but the iron remains intact. It only erodes with the decades. It outlasts every breath she struggles to take.

Andy was pale, she remembers, with dark hair and greenish eyes. Andy feels more like an idea than a real person - are humans even real? All she sees down here are fish. Gills ripple against their necks. Unfortunately, human bodies are not built on logic, but on their ancestors' memories. There is no way for her to breathe, even as water rushes into her lungs. She has no gills.

_Andy has left me to this fate._

She has been so, so patient. Andy has never come. It has been - she has no idea, but it has been far too long.

She has endured pain. By this point, the sting of her lungs is nothing. Fate has abandoned her. Is there oxygen in the water, or is that another of her delusions, like the made-up woman Andy? Andy is a myth. She is based on the idea of Andromeda. How pathetic, to fall in love with a myth. 

If only she was really a witch. That was why she was sealed in this coffin - witches deserved to die by any means, and if they didn't die, her and Andy were burned and drowned and killed by time rather than knives or ropes…

She first saw Andy in her dreams. Back then she was so young. Andy was young too, but also ancient, her hair black in a single chunky braid down her shoulders, that solid neck and round jawline curving into a smile when she saw… Quynh (that was her name, before) had seen Andy and finally felt peace.

At that time she was in the army. Quynh knew death. Andy and Quynh saw each other and both died, and then they worke on the battlefield while all the humans had died and left nothing but blood, and they looked into each other's eyes and finally understood.

Language had taken a long time. It was surprisingly difficult; Quynh had always heard barbaric languages and thought them simple, but it turned out that Andy's tongue was complex and twisted, and it took her almost twenty years to master it. Andy had similar difficulties learning Quyhm's language. 

In the end they spoke an amalgamation. It was parts of whatever dialect the locals used, and part Chinese and part Greek and part Italian, until it became wholly their own, and no one else on the planet spoke what they spoke.

Once upon a time, Quynh expected a husband. Now she had Andy instead, her knowing eyes and wicked smile. They did things to each other that Quynh didn't even know were possible. Andy kissed every time as though she were a drowning man in need of water; it was too intense, too desperate, too immediate. It scared Quynh. Did she kiss like that, too?

_Andy, have you left me to this fate?_

It is the ultimate tradgedy for an immortal, to be trapped - but it is better than death. At least Quynh has hope. She scrapes her nails against the iron every day and hopes for salvation.

_Andy, will you rescue me? Today? Tomorrow?_

_This century?_

_Some time, Andy, will you rescue me?_

Water fills all her brachaeoli. She drowns.

~*~*~

The iron gives after 500 years. More or less.

She is nothing. She is everything. Her body floats to the surface and she dies a few times as her organs rupture from the change in pressure.

The sunlight is so blinding she cries. Perhaps there is sand beneath her fingers. Quynh cries. She swears revenge in her drool and tears on the beach. She remembers the taste of Andy's lips. She cries.

Once her body has dried, she makes her way shakily to her feet. Her clothes have long since rotted away.

She walks.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [xenixat](http://xenixat.tumblr.com) :^)


End file.
